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Red Marker
The Red Marker is a mysterious device central to the events of Dead Space and Dead Space 2. History The First Aegis VII Incident After the discovery of the Black Marker, the Earth Government began researching the extent of its capabilities and structure. The research team, which originally featured Michael Altman, studied the Black Marker and reverse engineered it for their own use. Through an accident in basic decontamination the team discovered that the genetic code written on the marker was the code for the Necromorph contagion. Later on when the team was moving the Red Marker past the lab room containing the samples of the Necromorph contagion, it was discovered that the Marker emits a field or "Dead Space" that stops the Necromorph DNA from initiating recombination and makes it go dormant. As time went on some members of the team, through unknown events, became infected and were turned into Necromorphs and subsequently quarantined. The team became overrun by their research and most of them were killed by the Necromorph infection. The remaining team, lead by Dr. Eando Dukaj, created a pedestal, that one of the members claimed to have seen in a vision, most likely made by the marker, that could amplify the "Dead Space" made by the marker in the hopes of stopping the Necromorphs from spreading, and hopefully giving them a chance at survival. The team succeeded in making the pedestal and locked the Hive Mind and the rest of the infection with it on Aegis VII. The Second Aegis VII Incident Discovered by accident by an illegal mining colony on Aegis VII, the marker was hailed amongst some colonists as proof to their faith's credibility. Shortly after the discovery of the marker, cases of insomnia, depression and later dementia began occurring. Despite increasing cases of violence, colony management overrode P-Sec protestations and prepared to bring the Marker inside the colony itself. When the Marker was removed from its pedestal, it emitted red light and simultaneously broadcast an across-frequencies scream. Apparently taking the 'scream' as a signal, fifty Unitologists committed mass suicide; in a similar event of insanity, an extraction team engineer killed numerous members of his team and other colony personnel. By order of Captain Benjamin Matthius, the marker was brought to the USG Ishimura from the colony and a no-fly order was implemented between the colony and vessel. The bodies of all the murder victims were then sent to the ship secretly. The bodies of all the suicide victims were intentionally kept on the colony by the colony manager as leverage to have the Ishimura send him a vessel to transport him to the ship as he felt he deserved to be a part of the Marker's discovery. Days later, Planet Crack was to commence. Upon initiating the planet crack, a blackout occurred throughout the entire colony. Panic immediately ensued and people quickly started being slaughtered. It was later discovered by a colonist that the Marker's inscriptions represented a DNA recombinant code for necrotic flesh that results in the creation of The Necromorphs. With the bodies of the suicide victims as their hosts, the Necromorphs soon began running amok in the colony, killing off and transforming more colonists. The colony soon fell apart and with all the shuttles destroyed in a flight accident, it was soon completely overrun with Necromorphs. In the end, only a few colonists survived, most notably, Brant Harris. He was clearly traumatized by the events and provided rich information for the scientists aboard the Ishimura. Not surprisingly, the Ishimura soon followed the same fate as the colony and more Necromorphs were produced as a result of the Marker's removal. Through text logs found about the ship, Isaac Clarke discovers that the Marker is a divine relic of Unitology, a religion founded by Michael Altman 200 years ago. Unitologists view Michael Altman as a martyr due to his mysterious death after blowing the whistle on the Marker that was found on Earth. The Marker discovered by Altman, however, was black and not red like the one found on Aegis VII. It is revealed by Kendra Daniels that that the Red Marker was in fact a manmade copy of the Black Marker, the true alien artifact discovered on Earth. The Marker was then brought to Aegis VII and test fired with gruesome results. It was soon decided that the marker was too unstable and was subsequently buried deep within Aegis VII. The system was then sealed off. Two centuries later, an illegal mining operation by C.E.C. rediscovered the Marker with disastrous results. For the two centuries it had been buried in Aegis VII, the Red Marker had sealed off the "Hive Mind", a massive creature that controlled the Necromorphs through telepathy. Upon removing the Marker, the creature was released and went about killing off the humans of Aegis VII, the Ishimura and the USM Valor with its Necromorphs. The Marker was brought back to Aegis VII by Isaac Clarke in the hopes of once again sealing off the creature as well as the Necromorph infection. Though Isaac managed to return the Marker to its pedestal, which caused it to glow, this action was halted by Daniels, who returned and took the marker and attempted to flee with it on a shuttle. She was then killed by the Hive Mind; which was then defeated by Isaac Clarke. He then immediately escaped on the shuttle while the Marker remained behind on Aegis VII. It was presumed obliterated when the tectonic load the Ishimura had previously removed from the planet (with a mass of roughly a few trillion tons) was released and fell back to the planet with a cataclysmic impact. The Marker however was not completely destroyed and many shards of the Marker were left on the ruins of Aegis VII. Three months after the incident on the Ishimura the USG O'Bannon was sent to the ruins of Aegis VII to complete two missions. The first mission was to find a way to hold the breaking planet together. The second mission was to recover as many shards of the Marker as possible. Ships were sent down onto the planet and one of the crewmen found a Marker shard. He recovered it but it gave him dangerous hallucinations that caused him to kill a fellow crewmate. Only one ship managed to make it off the planet before it blew up completely and docked back in the USG O'Bannon. The Marker shard was examined by a scientist on the ship who became affected by it to such an extent that he killed his wife and baby, thinking they were monsters. The shard was eventually thrown into the ship's core reactor by the surviving crew members and destroyed. Abilities The Red Marker was able to create hallucinations, notably in Doctor Terrence Kyne and Isaac Clarke, urging them to return the marker to its proper place. In both instances, the marker created the illusion of a loved one; Doctor Kyne often conversed with his dead wife, Kendra Daniels repeatedly saw her brother (whether he is dead, or just not positioned to the ship is unknown; however, it is more probable that he is dead, as Kendra states she saw him "waving, like nothing was wrong."), and Clarke saw his girlfriend, the deceased Nicole Brennan, thus making it credible to argue that the Red Marker was helping Kyne and Clarke to return to Aegis VII and stop the Hive Mind. However there seems to be a bit of a contradiction in that almost everyone else it presumably contacted went insane and almost all of them surrendered to the Necromorphs or lost the will to live instead, although it is possible that this is unintentional and the Marker's attempt to create the Make us Whole Again hallucination causes other delusions. This could be why the Red Marker was considered unstable. Another explanation to these contrasting hallucinations is that perhaps the Hive Mind was also able to cause some of its own, creating different hallucinations that prompted miners to kill themselves and others, probably as a way to "prepare" corpses for the infection to take over. Speculation is further complicated because the Red Marker is in fact an imperfect copy of the Black Marker, and its discoloration might not be its only flaw; the original artifact might have behaved more consistently, or in a different way entirely. It can also be argued that the reason for the marker driving the nearby colonists insane is as a defense mechanism: by driving the colonists into destroying themselves, there would be nobody to move the marker away thus ensuring the marker could continue keeping the Hive Mind dormant. It is known as of Dead Space 2 that the Markers on Aegis VII and on the Sprawl are sentient. The hallucinations caused by the markers are actually codes that when accessed make more markers. This is how the marker on the Sprawl was created (from Isaac Clarke and Nolan Stross's minds). It is possible that the hallucinations are actually intended to create more markers. This still doesn't explain how the Black Marker came into existence unless the Black Marker is just of many and this process has existed since the dawn of time with each Marker being created from different materials represented by sentient species. This could explain why Necromorphs are able to infect all forms of organic material. In Dead Space 2, the Marker 3A tricks Isaac into believing that he will not be harmed, with the hallucination of Nicole finally becoming docile. However, the hallucinations soon reveal that it was a ruse, demonstrating that the Markers are capable of complex thought. In the end, it betrays him and the two enter a battle with each other. It is unknown what triggered the change in behavior, as it might have known this from Isaac and planned ahead, his reasoning may have made it necessary for the Marker to change its method, or it could have learned from Stross' eventual breaking and insanity. When a large amount of Necromorphs surround the Red Marker in Dead Space 2, this causes a convergence event. All of the Necromorphs seem to be carried away into the air and large amounts of psychic energy is released from the Marker. After Isaac gets the codes from his mind, a new Necromorph with eight eyes appears that can regenerate just like the Hunter on the Ishimura, although one can be seen shortly before hand leading the Necromorph charge against Tiedemann's troops when Issac shuts off the lights in the area. Trivia *This marker is actually one of several markers. In a report to the Commander of the USM Valor, it is referred to as "Marker 3A", possibly being an enumeration in a series or generation with the first being the Black Marker. In the ending of Dead Space 2 it is revealed in an audio playback between two unknown officials that there are several more markers in existence, stating that The Sprawl is Marker site 12. *Throughout the duration of Dead Space, the monitors located throughout the game will become "possessed," flashing red and having the symbols found throughout the game moving about the screen erratically; when Isaac approaches the monitors they will turn on and start flashing red with the symbols and turn off when Isaac is at a certain distance. It becomes apparent in Chapter 11: Alternate Solutions that this is from the Red Marker manipulating Isaac, when Isaac meets up with Nicole after Daniels attempts to escape with the Red Marker. *There are some discrepancies between Downfall and the games. **The Red Marker appears significantly larger during Downfall. **In the movie, the Marker seems to have the ability to repel Necromorphs approaching it, though most likely for gameplay reasons this ability is absent from Dead Space. Although at the end of the game, when the Marker is put in place by Isaac, it creates a light that kills any remaining Necromorphs nearby. **It appears to be black in Downfall, or at least a much darker red than in Dead Space, though the text inscribed on it is still red. *During game play, whenever Isaac approaches the Marker it seems to emit what sounds like several people chanting. What the voices are saying, however, is entirely unintelligible. *A leaked design for Dead Space 2 shows what is probably the Red Marker on a book cover, suggesting that the story of Aegis VII and the Ishimura was made public. *In the Dead Space 2 Dementia trailer, the Red Marker appears in Isaac's pupil, showing that the Red Marker still had some role in Dead Space 2. This also signifies that the Red Marker still has some effects on him, even after its apparent destruction. *Red Markers are red, because bismuth was used to replace certain elements in the duplication of the Black Marker[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4866415&id=18523496658 Facebook - Dead Space Comment on Red Markers] *As of Dead Space: Salvage the Red Marker is presumed destroyed as a group of illegal miners found the USG Ishimura, its hull shot full of shards from the marker. *The Markers had seemingly different effects during both games. The first one seemed to only want to cull Necromorph outbreaks and keep them from happening, while the second appeared to activley cause Necromorphs to form and Issac's worsening dementia. This is the result of two conflicting forces surrounding the Markers, in Dead Space: Martyr these conflicting effects can be seen simultaniously among the scientists researching the Black Marker. While some see dead relatives telling them to stop their research, warning them of "Convergance", others hear whispers "from the Marker" telling them that it offers eternal life through Convergance, this is apparently due to some form of warning field surrounding all Markers which seems to have been put there by whatever sent the first Black Marker to Earth. Gallery Image:Dead-space-20080923085718171_640w.jpg|The Marker as it was on Aegis VII Image:PA251180.JPG|The Marker after being returned to its pedestal dse1.jpg Notes Sources See Also *Black Marker *The Red Marker (log) Category:Markers